Excerpt from Golden Hill by Francis Spufford, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Lovell ignored him. "Jem," he said, "fetch a lantern closer."

The clerk brought one of the fresh-lit candles in its chimney, and Lovell held the page up close to the hot glass; so close that Smith made a start as if to snatch it away, which Lovell reproved with an out-thrust arm; but he did not scorch the paper, only tilted it where the flame shone through and showed in paler lines the watermark of a mermaid.

"Paper's right," said the clerk.

"The hand too," said Lovell. "Benjamin Banyard's own, I'd say."

"Yes," said Mr. Smith, "though his name was Barnaby Banyard when he sat in his office in Mincing Lane and wrote the bill for me. Come, now, gentlemen; do you think I found this on a street-corner?"

Lovell surveyed him, clothes and hands and visage and speech, such as he had heard of it, and found nothing there that closed the question.

"You might ha' done," he said, "for all I know. For I don't know you. What is this thing? And who are you?"

"What it seems to be. What I seem to be. A paper worth a thousand pounds; and a traveller who owns it."

"Or a paper fit to wipe my arse, and a lying rogue. Ye'll have to do better than that. I've done business with Banyard's for twenty year, and settled with 'em for twenty year with bills on Kingston from my sugar traffic. Never this; never paper sent all on a sudden this side the water, asking money paid for the whole season's account, almost, without a word, or a warning, or a by-your-leave. I'll ask again: who are you? What's your business?"

"Well: in general, Mr. Lovell, buying and selling. Going up and down in the world. Seeing what may turn to advantage; for which my thousand pounds may be requisite. But more specifically, Mr. Lovell: the kind I choose not to share. The confidential kind."

"You impudent pup, flirting your mangled scripture at me! Speak plain, or your precious paper goes in the fire."

"You won't do that," said Smith.

"Oh, won't I? You jumped enough a moment gone when I had it nigh the lamp. Speak, or it burns."

"And your good name with it. Mr. Lovell, this is the plain kernel of the matter: I asked at the Exchange for London merchants in good standing, joined to solid traders here, and your name rose up with Banyard's, as an honourable pair, and they wrote the bill."

"They never did before."

"They have done now. And assured me you were good for it. Which I was glad to hear, for I paid cash down."

"Cash down," repeated Lovell, flatly. He read out: "?'At sixty days' sight, pay this our second bill to Mr. Richard Smith, for value received...' You say you paid in coin, then?"

"I did."

"Of your own, or of another's? As agent, or principal? To settle a score or to write a new one? To lay out in investments, or to piss away on furbelows and sateen weskits?"

"Just in coin, sir. Which spoke for itself, eloquently."

"You not finding it convenient, no doubt, to move so great a weight of gold across the ocean."

"Exactly."

"Or else hoping to find a booby on the other side as'd turn paper to gold for the asking."

"I never heard that New-Yorkers were so easy to impose on," said Mr. Smith.

"So we aren't, sir," said Lovell, "so we aren't." He drummed his fingers. "Especially when one won't take the straight way to clear off the suspicion we may be gulled. —You'll excuse my manner. I speak as I find, usually; but I don't know how I find you, I don't know how to take you, and you study to keep me uncertain, which I don't see as a kindness, or as especial candid, I must say, in a strip of a boy who comes demanding payment of an awk'ard-sized fortune, on no surety."

"On all the ordinary surety of a right bill," protested Smith.

Excerpted from Golden Hill by Francis Spufford. Copyright © 2017 by Francis Spufford. Excerpted by permission of Scribner. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.